Prada fashion house funds Italian video and conceptual artist Francesco Vezzoli’s project during which Vezzoli will turn the Palais d’Iéna in Paris into a pop-up 24-hour museum.
Photo: Helen Miren wearing a Versace toga for Vezzoli’s trailer for the imaginary remake of Tinto Brass’s Caligula, by Francesco Vezzoli
The venue, designed by architectural studio AMO, will start with a private dinner at 9 pm on January 24, then will be transformed into a nightclub and on the day after turn into a museum. The initiative completes with school trips and a press conference. The last three hours, before the temporary museum closes its doors, there will be a public party.
Vezzoli is known for his talent of persuasion, says The Guardian. In 2006, he persuaded Helen Mirren, Benicio del Toro and Gore Vidal to put on Versace-designed togas, in order to make a film trailer for an imaginary remake of Caligula. In 2009, he created Greed, an ad for a fictitious perfume directed by Roman Polanski and featuring Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams.
Originally built as a museum, the Palais d’Iéna is now the seat of the Conseil économique, social et environnemental, France’s economic and social and environmental council. Vezzoli says that it would be like squatting in the House of Lords.
He will build inside of the Palais the five-metre high, kitsch, neoclassical figures with the heads of the celebrities he has worked with, from Courtney Love to Cate Blanchett.
«It could be seen as a tacky show-off or it could be seen as a deep political analysis of the role of institutions as social hubs,» said Vezzoli to Guardian. «Artists and critics see museums as a jewel case where the mementos of our epoch should be preserved, but if you said ‘MoMA’ to the president of Barclays’ bank, [he would] say, ‘That’s a venue for rent for $50,000 if you want to hold an event.’ These places have gone from being small and protected to being big and less protected. The only institutions that aren’t for rent are the private ones because people like Prada don’t need the money.»
Vezzoli also describes Prada’s cash as «the cleanest money on earth – the fruits of a product which is a vehicle of culture». With Prada’s money, Vezzoli hopes to make people smile looking at his parody sculptures.
Since its launch in 1994, the Prada Foundation has funded a number of art projects, including Carsten Höller’s Congolese-style nightclub the Double Club, which ran in London in 2009. Now, Prada is collaborating with LG to create a Prada phone.
As a part of the pop-up project, Vezzoli will chat on Twitter with a celebrity «even bigger than Lady Gaga” (probably it will be Rihanna). When the 24-hour project is over, Vezzoli says he is happy if people start having sex on the sight. He says he intends to stay up for the entire 24 hours—but «if there’s no sex, I’ll go home».
